Singing, Dancing, Music

Thursday night 'Au Vin des Rues' - almost
impressionistic.

Paris Life - No. 21

by Laurel
Avery

Paris:- Friday, 17. October:- "Hi, this is Barry
from Santa Fe," said the voice at the end of the phone
line, just as we were about to sit down to dinner at the
usual Parisian hour of 21:00. Santa Fe boasts a bevy of
Barry's, and I personally know at least three of them. This
is not including another friend named Bari, to make things
even more confusing.

Since the Barry from Santa Fe that I know best, who
happens to be my room-mate, was standing right in front of
me with a bowl full of hot couscous, I figured it was a
safe bet that it wasn't him. Then my thoughts turned to my
oenophile friend, Barry from Santa Fe, who I imagined might
have made a spur-of-the-moment trip to France to be here
for the wine harvest, though this year he would have been
about a month and a half late.

FInally, I recalled that this particular Barry from
Santa Fe had sent me an email back in August
saying that he and his partner Diane would be visiting in
October. My first bonafide visitors to Paris! I began to
think of which sights I would advise them to see during
their visit.

Note in window gives open times for the
café-restaurant.

Though it seems rather odd to me, not all people enjoy
getting into the culture of the places to which they
travel. For instance, while walking down the street the
other night I happened to notice that a particularly large
tour bus had stopped along the boulevard, allowing a good
number of Chinese visitors to alight.

They crossed the street en masse and proceeded to enter
a Chinese restaurant for dinner! It seems to me that if you
go to the trouble of traveling to a foreign country you
might at least try the regional cuisine, and in France,
it's almost difficult to find a really bad French meal,
while it's very easy here to find mediocre Chinese
food.

So I figured that my friends, being the type who
actually like to experience the culture of the country they
are visiting, would enjoy an evening at a little
café in the 14th arrondissement that still retains a
small slice of what I think of as the authentic France.

Every Thursday evening this café goes back
decades in time and transforms into an intimate Parisian
music hall. The only instrument involved is an accordion,
played by a woman whose voice is reminiscent of Edith Piaf
as she sings such things as 'Padam, Padam' and the
ever-popular 'La Vie end Rose.'

The café's patrons join in, and soon the whole
place is singing along. There is even a little booklet that
circulates around which has the words to most of the songs
in it - in case you don't know them already - which it
seems that the majority of the customers do. As the evening
wears on other regulars wander in, looking like French
characters sent over from Central Casting.

One tall, grey-haired, patrician-looking guy is
nicknamed the 'Bibliotheque Nationale' as he knows
the words to seemingly every communist anthem and
revolutionary song ever written. Then there is Henri, a
sweet man of 82, nattily dressed, complete with cap and an
elegantly tied scarf around his neck, who dances with every
woman in the place at some point in the evening, no matter
her age.

Typical instrument used for music-making on
Thursdays.

The owner himself is always behind the bar on these
evenings, and could not look more like a French 'patron' if
he tried. He has a long walrus-style moustache and the
ample girth that one associates with jovial restaurateurs.
His shirts are the type worn by provincial farmers around
the turn of the century, and after you have shown up there
a couple of times, he treats you like one of the
regulars.

The café-restaurant is no bigger than a large
living room, and soon it was completely full, with anyone
who wasn't gathered around a table standing at the bar. The
music began, and within moments everyone was singing along,
and any available area of free floor space was taken up by
people dancing.

I had reserved a table for eight, as other friends were
going to join us. By the time the music began, everyone
from our group had shown up except my visiting friends. So
we gave up one of our chairs to accommodate another
customer, a man named Dominique.

A native Parisian, Dominique is a physicist now living
in Toulouse, who often travels to Paris for his work. He
has a place just down the street from the café, but
told us he had never been there before.

He happened to wander in hoping for a quiet bite to eat,
knowing nothing about the usual Thursday
evening goings-on. It turned out to be a bit more lively
than he expected, but he seemed delighted to be there and
enjoyed singing along from time to time with everyone
else.

Au Vin des Rues on a quieter night than on a
Thursday.

I told him that this sort of thing is never found in
America, and he said it is not found much in France either.
People rarely get together any more to sing or dance he
said, as the culture has become increasingly
"Americanized."

In France you can still find little pockets of innocence
that rarely exist any more in the western world. This is
one of them, and I hope it remains so for a long time.

My friends from Santa Fe never showed up, but I'm sure
others will be visiting soon and I will be able to share
this treasured little place with them too.